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Copyright, 1896 

BY 

JOHN OWEN COIT 
E^iiered ai Stationers' Hall^ London 



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ACKNOWLEDGMENT. 

Acknowledgment is hereby made to the 
owners of the copyrights of the quotations 
contained in Part II. of this Httle work, for 
their courtesy in granting permission for the 
use of the same. 

Special thanks are due to Mrs. A. D. T. 
Whitney, Mrs. Julia Ditto Young, Miss 
Edith M. Thomas, Lewis Morris, William 
Watson, L. E. Mosher, the Bridgeport 
Standard, the Los Angeles TimeSy the 
Chicago TiineS'Heraldj and Messrs. Charles 
Scribner's Sons, Henry Holt & Co., Hough- 
ton, MifHin & Co., Smith, Elder & Co. 

J. O. C. 



ii\ 



CONTENTS. 



Part L 

PAGE 

SUPPORT 3 

OUR DESTINED PART 4 

IN REALITY . 6 

WITH BELIEF 9 

THE ABIDING INFLUENCE . . . .12 

DEATH 12 

THE LIFE WHICH IS MORE THAN ME'AT . 1 3 

THE LIFE BEYOND I4 

RELIGIOUS EVOLUTION . . . . 14 

UPWARD 15 

QUESTIONS AS TO GOD 1 6 

FAITH AND REASON 1 7 

"heathenism " AND CHURCH-ATTENDANCE 1 8 

TO BE A CHRISTIAN I9 

WITHOUT GOD 20 

FEAR ........ 22 

V 



VI 



Contents 



UNHAPPINESS 

THE SICKNESS OF OVERWORK 

SELF-HELP .... 

TO BENEFIT 

PROGRESS o'er THE SANDS . 

AS TO COMPLETED RESULTS 

STRENGTH, SIMPLICITY ; TRUTH, 

THE SPIRIT LIFE, WHAT IS IT ? 

THE GOODNESS OF GOD 

A writer's life . 

CONTENT .... 
literal CHRISTIANITY 

what is the soul ? . 
earth's message 
afterward 

TO REV. JOHN HUTCHINS 

TWO PICTURES 

HOW TO LIVE 

A CONQUEROR 

WHAT IS SIN ? . . . 

A PRAYER .... 

A STATEMENT 

AN ANSWER TO *^ ISOLATION OF 

ality" .... 
EVIL IS BUT PERVERTED GOOD 





PAGE 


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24 


• 


24 




• 25 


• 


25 


• 


25 


PURITY 


26 


. 


27 


• 


28 


• 


• 29 


• 


30 


• 


• 31 




31 


• 


32 


• 


33 


• 


34 


• 


35 


• 


37 




37 


• 


38 


• 


38 


• 


39 


INDIVIDU- 




• 


39 


, . 


41 



Contents vii 



Part II. 

PAGE 

QUOTATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS . . -45 

Summary. 

Religion 96 

Sacrifice - 98 



PART I. 
ESSAYS AND POEMS. 



THE RELIGION OF MANHOOD. 



Support, 

One who has tasted the delights of the 
heights, and suffered the agonies of the 
depths, knows that a balanced life is the ideal 
one, a life in which the trials and suffer- 
ings of one time are offset and counter- 
balanced by delights and compensations at 
other times, in such ways that humanity is 
better adjusted, the divinity of man is better 
apprehended, and the fact that God is infi- 
nite is somewhat comprehended. 

We cannot go further or wider than this, 
as a foundation, without insanity. We can- 
not go less far or less wide without sacrific- 
ing that completeness which it is possible for 
each of us to give to his or her life. 

Not but that many men can and do live, 
unto the end, on a narrower foundation than 

3 



The Religion of Manhood 



this. Not but that many men seem to con- 
sider themselves and their own lives suffi- 
ciently complete without such a foundation, 
but let us judge their lives impartially, com- 
pare them with the lives of greater men, 
notice the incompleteness of the lesser lives, 
then ask ourselves if we are willing to con- 
tinue to live below our rightful plane, un- 
supported by faith in and realization of a 
higher, truer, nobler life, as indicated by the 
lines below ? 

** A life which stands as all true lives have 

stood. 
Firm rooted in the faith that God is good/* 

Our Destined Part. 

It makes little difference whether we call 
this higher, truer, nobler influence, in our 
lives and in the world, God, or Fate, or Des- 
tiny, but it is important, vitally important, 
as to whether we do or do not believe in 
some such force, of which we are a part and 
to which we go, at the end. 



Essays and Poems 



The ** end, beginning, mean, and end to 
all things,'' the life-giving influence, that is 
the influence for us to choose and hold to, 
omitting the lesser and lower, because '^ The 
Life " is '* more than meat,'' therefore the 
lesser things of this life should be subordi- 
nated, and kept in their true places, under- 
neath, not in the first place in our thoughts. 
Not neglecting the less important matters, 
but keeping them in their relative position, 
under, not above, for 

— above all treasures is thy soul's good, 
endlessly : 

Yet we should not put our own pleasure, 
nor even our spiritual profit in advance of 
real, practical work for others, for only 
through the working of natural laws are 
these better things to be accomplished, only 
by labor for the good of others are the best 
results attained, in life and in character. 

Not but that our own pleasure may and 
will be, to a great extent, included in our 



The Religion of Manhood 



work for others, but our own pleasure must 
not be the first object in our view. Instead, 
it should be at least secondary, else we will 
fail in our efforts to win that which is best 
worth winning, and will fail to accomplish 
that which is most worth accomplishing. 

In Reality. 

After all, it is not a question of fame, 
honor, money, or opinion, but a question as 
to the reality of these higher influences, the 
lesser and greater of these subtler influences 
which make men gentlemen, and which re- 
fine, elevate, and improve us and our stand- 
ards. Are they, as we are sometimes 
tempted to believe, all imagination, or are 
they, indeed, the most real of all ? 

Are we, in our souls, but passing influences, 
or are we in our higher selves part of God ? 
Bryant has written, — 

'' — surrendering up thine individual being 
Shalt thou go to mix forever with the 
elements, 



Essays and Poems 



To be a brother to the insensible rock, 
And to the clod,— '* 

*^ Never,** my spirit says to me, as clearly as 
any words fall on the natural ear, '^ never to 
be a rock or a clod, or any such gross and 
lifeless thing ! '* The body, the lesser, lower 
self, may and indeed will perish, but the soul 
will then be free from all sin, pain, and sor- 
sow, and all narrow limits. 

Why should I be, in any way, afraid of 
death ? " Answer the testimony of the life, 
if you can, you who doubt,'* we are told ; and 
the continual testimony of my life has been 
to teach me, at least, the reality of spiritual- 
ity, and the unsatisfying ability of earthly 
things. Why is it that I have been so con- 
tinually unable to settle down to business ? 
Why is it that I have, at times, thought so 
lightly of money-making ? Has it not been 
because, 

** I have seen higher, holier things than 
these. 



8 The Religion of Manhood 



And therefore must to these refuse my 
heart"? 

I have dreaded " love of money ** ever 
since I began to realize what sordid creatures 
most money-makers become, except where 
the growing fondness for money and its pur- 
chasing power is well balanced by a good 
love for family or friends. I have desired to 
so " bear witness '' that others would be 
more truly benefited than if I gave myself 
with absorbing interest to the money-getting 
which has become so necessary a part of our 
modern life and welfare, if one would keep 
any respectable place in civilization. Is 
modern civilization right in its present view 
of position, — position as held by man's ma- 
terial power, rather than by a man's worth as 
a man, and by his power for good in higher 
than material lines ? Surely modern civiliza- 
tion is not right as to parts of these subjects, 
yet we cannot improve matters except as we 
improve ourselves, gain the ear of modern 
civilization, and say to it, '^ Look higher ! " 



Essays and Poems 



Is not the power of a good, true and 
noble life to be found to-day, just as Lowell 
described it, as applied to ** earth*s chosen 
heroes,'' not in the yielding to popular fal- 
lacies, but in living as men should live ? To 
do this, let us realize, in and through our- 
selves, the ideal presented by Thomas 
Hughes, when he says : " Courage is the 
foundation of manliness ; and manliness is 
the perfection of character." 

With Belief. 

It is not a question of '' How can I believe 
in God ? '' It is a question of " How can I, 
even if I would, disbelieve in Him ? " 

Some men, men who have lived through 
less than I have, men who are obliged to 
judge from a surface or shallow or small ex- 
perience of life, may wonder why I so in- 
tensely, so vitally, so thoroughly believe ; 
but those who have been through more 
nearly similar experiences, those who have 
suffered, those who have been up and down, 



lo The Religion of Manhood 



well and sick, happy and sad, disappointed, 
tried, harassed, and then, in turn, elevated 
in spirit almost beyond what reasonable life 
can bear — these men will realize that there 
is a God working in and through us, a vital 
force which is more than nature, or imagi- 
nation, or chance, or fate, or intellect ! 

** The sun doth not contain Him, nor the 
sea,'* — that is, neither one of these is suf- 
ficient to comprehend Him, although He is, 
indeed, working ever, in and through nature 
and nature's law. 

No chance, no fate, would have been, I 
believe, persistent enough to have overruled 
me in the ways in which I have been over- 
ruled, continually. I find, instead, a purpose 
in it all, a calling to look higher, a plan of 
God, an evidence that He loves all, and be- 
cause of that love does not shrink from 
causing pain, for future good. 

We are told, and told truly, that as to 
human love, 



Essays and Poems i i 



" — that love is false which clings to love 
For selfish sweets of love." 

May not the same be true, yes, may it not 
be even more true as to the Divine love? 
God allows us, for His own infinite cause, to 
suffer, to doubt, and even to fall, but later 
He may reveal more of His reasons, at least 
we shall be sufficiently sustained, encour- 
aged and delivered, if we but consistently 
act up to our own best ideals and knowledge 
of results, as they become revealed to us. 
Is it not enough, for the present, to know 
that God loves us, to know that the great 
power of this earth, the all-directing Destiny, 
is good and not evil, and that, as a natural 
result, the outcome will be good ? 

Let not the knowledge referred to in the 
last paragraph, be taken as excusing a lack 
of personal application ! God has, so far, in 
all our later history, acted through men, not 
angels, so it is very important that each one 
take up and bear, continually, his or her 



12 The Religion of Manhood 



burden of work and assistance in the great 
plans now going forward, the plans for the 
enlightenment and improvement of our age, 
our lives and characters, and those of the 
nations with which we all come into more or 
less communication, according to our own 
wills and willingness. 

The Abiding Influence. 

It may be slow. 

It must be sure ; 
Elsewise your work 

Will not endure. 

Death, 

When our shade falls, the messenger will 

come with shining face 
To lead us from earth*s valley to the palace 

of God's grace, 
Where loved ones gone before us still live, 

and love, and pray ; 
Where no night cometh, ever, and no heat 

blights the day. 



Essays and Poems 13 



Shall we go forth with trembling, with sor- 
row, or with woe ? 

Shall we not trust that mercy which led us 
here below ? 

Shall we not trust our loved ones to the God 
who rules overhead ? 

Will He not keep them truly, giving them 
their daily bread ? 

The Life Which is More than Meat, 

Oh, this spirit-life ! So true, so real, so 
vital, and yet so intangible when we wish, 
literally, to grasp it ! So invisible when we 
would like (Oh, so much !) to see it with 
our natural eyes, yet so much evidence of 
it within, so much evidence of it beyond, if 
we but so control ourselves that we are 
willing to see it, know it, and feel it, and 
if we will but become so purified that we 
desire (if need be) to make some sacrifice, — 
sacrifices of pleasure, money and ambitions, 
if by and through any such sacrifices we can 
and will any more truly overcome, can and 
will any more truly benefit ! 



14 The Religion of Manhood 



The Life Beyond, 

O mystery of mysteries ! 

O life beyond the goal ! 
Transcendent, everlasting ; 

The pure life of the soul. 

Religious Evolution, 

It is natural for us to become divine. 
What a mistake it is to beHeve that divinity 
is, at all, an unnatural result of our earthly 
lives, or that the conditions of such divinity 
are given to us, from outside, rather than 
developed in us ! 

I believe in an evolutionary religion and 
in a religious evolution. That is to say, I 
believe in a religion which is gradually to be 
worked out,/^r se^ and that all these things 
in and about us — the natural, the material, 
and the spiritual — are destined to evolve a 
truer, purer, higher life beyond. 

Not necessarily beyond this world, but in 
and through what we call ''the world,'' in 
a wide sense of the words, let each of us 



Essays and Poems 15 



work out that which is above, gradually dis- 
carding and omitting the lower and lesser, 
and apprehending, instead, the greater and 
grander of the influences continually within 
our control. (Yet not "apprehending'' 
them for our own gain, but rather in order 
to diffuse them, as possible, unto others.) 

Upward. 

Draw the lines a little tighter. 

Spirit mine ! 
Make the life a little brighter. 

Spirit mine ! 
For the truth's sake be a fighter. 
Show the world life may be whiter. 
Purer, stronger, dearer, lighter, 

More divine ! 

If one wills, life may be higher, 

Spirit mine ! 
If one loves, God will be nigher. 

Spirit mine ! 
His affection does not tire, 



1 6 The Religion of Manhood 



Let us then His truth desire, 
Seeking it past water, fire. 

Gold and wine ! 

Questions as to God. 

Questions as to God are questions as to 
the main fact of the universe. 

It makes, indeed, all the difference in the 
world as to whether this life is, after all, a 
comparatively short one, and, following it, 
we enter upon an eternity of enjoyment ; or, 
on the other hand, whether this life is, in- 
stead, our only one, and, following it, we 
enter upon an eternity of nothingness, going 
to be *' a brother to the insensible rock '' 
(as Bryant puts it), going to be " earth to 
earth,'' ^' ashes to ashes.'* 

Why are we so blind and indifferent as to 
the spiritual side of our natures ? Why do 
we so forget and overlook the fact that man 
is of a dual character, — the body which 
perishes, and the spirit which abides ? 



Essays and Poems 1 7 



" God is spirit : and they that worship 
Him must worship in spirit and in truth ? " 

'* Where got the man his confidence, ex- 
cept from truth ? And what should the 
truth be, but God ? '' 

" And if God thunder by law, the thunder 
is still His voice." 

Faith and Reason, 

Yet I know that God, in His infinite Wis- 
dom, may allow some of His followers 
(possibly me, also), to lose their heads, to 
lose their grip and even their powers for 
good. We cannot reject facts. No matter 
how much we may wish to believe otherwise, 
we must accept facts as facts. Here is where 
faith transcends reason ! Reason alone can- 
not satisfy us. It goes part way, it convinces 
us of truth, but reason is limited by the evi- 
dences of this life. Faith accepts the deduc- 
tions of reason, but also envelops them with 
a belief in a past and a future which are be- 
yond the grasp of mere reason. Reason 



1 8 The Religion of Manhood 



says : " If man disobey natural law he must 
suffer the consequence." Faith sadly 
agrees: '* Yes, surely, in this life, but beyond 
this life many will live differently, and those 
who have striven faithfully will be forgiven." 
Is not this sufficient to lead us to believe 
until death, no matter what the apparent 
side of our lives may become ? 

** Heathenism " and Church-Attendance, 

The New England churches hold too 
strictly to the doctrine of '^ Christ alone, 
the only hope of salvation," and to belief 
in the Bible as '' a perfect rule of faith and 
practice." 

We of to-day, many of us, have learned 
the truth that a God-life may be lived just 
as well outside the churches as in them. 
We have learned, also, that ** the Bible is 
only one of God's primers," by and through 
which He has taught and is teaching many 
wonderful truths, yet there is much neces- 
sary truth to be learned outside the Bible 



Essays and Poems 19 



before we can to any degree realize, in our- 
selves and among the people we live with, 
that ideal life so held up to us in the Bible. 

Modern Christianity has great problems 
and wonderful opportunities before it, and 
it will never solve these problems satisfac- 
torily, nor make right use of its opportuni- 
ties, until it broadens out its application of 
Christ's charity, until it awakes to the fact 
that " time makes ancient good uncouth," 
and until it has in its pulpits men of more 
fire, men of more sincere, intelligent and 
practical application of God's truths. Then 
we may expect to see one sort of " heathen- 
ism '' lessened, but until that day the amount 
of church-attendance by earnest, thinking, 
sincere people, as well as by the careless, 
will not be increased. 

To be a Christian. 

Is it to pray in word. 

And to accept a creed ? 
Often is prayer unheard, 

Christ seems to give no heed. 



20 The Religion of Manhood 



Live thou the Christian life^ 
Seeking to know the best ; 

Patient and pure in strife, 
Then God will give thee rest. 

Without God, 

Is not this the condition toward which 
some of us are developing, to-day ? 

Yet I do not wish to be misunderstood, 
in asking this question. When I say " with- 
out God," I do not mean, '' without God 
and without hope in the world.'' No such 
lifeless position as this, but rather a position 
and condition where there is not that '^ per- 
sonal leading'* of which we have often 
thought, in the past, in which we have been 
taught to believe, and for which we have 
often prayed and striven ! 

We ask this question, some of us, in all 
seriousness, not as atheists, not as infidels, 
but as those who have sought a personal 
God, only to find, instead, an influence, an 



Essays and Poems 2 1 



essence, the good, but no personality which 
we can apprehend. We have discovered 
something of the truth as to the altruistic 
life, the spirit life, the man-life and the God- 
life, superior to the grosser, the more brutal, 
the more selfish life which many lead, but 
beyond this higher life we find, as yet, no 
evidence of any heavenly messengers, ready 
to protect the good and thwart the evil, in 
the world. 

What then ? Does this discovery lessen, 
in any way, our responsibility to others ? 
Does it not, instead, intensify it, for if God 
were God would He not force men to do 
his will, if need be ? On the other hand, if 
man be all to whom we may look for help, 
how important that each bear his part, lest 
our race, having lost, to a considerable ex- 
tent, its belief in a personal God, sink back 
toward savagery. 

How else can we explain many nineteenth- 
century crimes, except through loss of belief 
in God, and love of near-at-hand personal 



2 2 The Religion of Manhood 



gain, regardless of truth and the rights of 
others ? 

At this time, therefore, what double need 
of every man being a man, one who will 
stand for the truth, the truth of a higher 
life, the truth of altruism, the truth of public 
benefit ! Although we hardly realize it, we 
are in war-times, in times when the forces of 
evil are more aggressive than when they 
were held in check by a more national fear 
of God. Read almost any daily paper, with 
its record of frauds, embezzlements, murder, 
robberies and rapine. Who is to protect 
the widow, the orphan, the unsuspecting, 
the innocent, the guileless ? One way is 
surely open. It is by man, for man. That, 
to-day, is our chief hope of salvation, yet 
how superficially do most of us realize this, 
when we think of it at all ! 

Fear. 
There is nothing to be afraid of except 
that remorse and deep regret which come to 
one if he discovers, at any time, that his life 



Essays and Poems 23 



has been, in the main, toward evil rather 
than good, toward injuring rather than help- 
ing others ; toward cheapening, debasing or 
in any way lowering the true standards of 
life ; or toward making life itself of less value, 
dignity, and nobility, instead of adding to it 
that amount of benefit which we are able to 
see as possible, in our clearer moments ; and 
which can gradually be apprehended and 
made effective, if we choose resolutely never 
to abide in or yield to our darker *' visions/* 

Unhappiness. 

There are no circumstances of life which 
can compel unhappiness. Circumstances 
may produce in us great suffering, great 
exertion, or great exhaustion, but there is 
a vast difference between these things and 
unhappiness. It is our privilege to so take 
suffering as to make happiness. Within 
ourselves, and within our control, are end- 
less sources of delight. As we discover 
them, let us use these delights of memory, 
music of spirit, imagination and hope, so 



24 The Religion of Manhood 



that they expand in us to the gradual sub- 
ordination of disagreeable circumstances, to 
such an extent that we live superior to all 
disappointments ! 

The Sickness of Overwork. 

If one is ever losing his grip, because of 
overwork in the field of thought, give him 
rest, comfort and peacefulness, in propor- 
tion to his overwork, and you may restore 
him. If you are unable to do so, if his 
mind continues lacking in completeness to 
an alarming extent, comfort yourself with 
the thought that even insanity is not such 
a terrible thing as it sometimes appears 
to be ; and suicide may be right or wrong. 
The objects in view make the difference. 

God sees not as we see ! Our part is only 
to use as well as we can those talents which 
are ours, without repining, and trust God 
for the rest. 

SelfHelp. 

Pardon me ! I do what I think will be best. 
Pardon me ! But for me there now is no rest. 



Essays and Poems 25 



Pardon me! But whether Hfe conquers or 

fails, 
Unto the end, truly, self-help avails. 

To Benefit. 

Be willing to be misunderstood ; 
If only, thereby, you effect the good. 
Seek not alone your happiness to keep ; 
Truth must be won for others, ere you sleep. 

Progress O'er the Sands. 

Ever lifting, ever sifting ; 

But with purpose ; never drifting ! 

Lifting in the sense of ** seeking to add to 
the stores of truth, and diminish the moun- 
tains of error.'' Sifting in the sense that, 
'^ Questioning sifts out the trutho'' Keep- 
ing in mind, also, the words, 

" Part of thy manhood is to doubt and solve. 
And rise to higher things.'* 

As to Completed Results. 

God only can know ; 
Time only can show. 



26 The Religion of Manhood 



Strength^ Simplicity ; Truths Purity. 

Be strong, simple, true and pure! Not 
strong in any physical sense alone, although 
physical strength is something to be culti- 
vated. Not simple in the way of being un- 
intelligent, not true as to facts only, not 
pure in the sense of prudish ; but better, 
broader, higher than either of these ! 

Be strong in the strength of a man, in its 
higher as well as in its lower meaning. Be 
strong in manliness ! 

Be simple in the way in which Lowell 
uses the word, in his Commemoration Ode^ 

" Still patient in his simple faith sublime, 
Till the wise years decide.'* 

Be true to thine own self, that is to thy 
best self, to the real revelation of truth in 
you, as you come to recognize and under- 
stand it. 

Be pure in the sense of resolving and 
living as indicated by the poem : 



Essays and Poems 27 



** I will go forth 'mong men, not mailed in 
scorn 
But in the armor of a pure intent. 
And whether crowned or crownless when 
I fall 
It matters not, so as God*s work is done." 

The Spirit Life ; What is it ? 

It is the higher, larger, nobler life, within 
the control and suited to the needs of each 
one of us. 

It is the man-life and the God-life, superior 
to the lower, lesser, and grosser life which we 
find all around us, and to which we are often 
inclined. 

It is the power for good in human lives 
which enables them to overcome the tempta- 
tion to make personal ends of these material 
things such as money, fame, honors and 
position, instead of using them as means for 
the benefit of others. 



28 The Religion of Manhood 



It is that influence which will, ere long, 
effect in our own country that result prophe- 
sied by Annie Besant when she said, in sub- 
stance : '* It shall come when each thinks for 
others and forgets self; when the general 
good is the recognized aim of the individual ; 
when each outstretched hand is put forth for 
service, not for gain ; then, when the broth- 
erly act is the natural fruitage of the brotherly 
spirit, the republic of man will be born.'' 

The Goodness of God, 

One might as well try to get away from 
moisture, and live without it, as to try to 
get away from the goodness of God. Does 
one get away from the moisture by leaving 
the ocean itself and climbing a mountain ? 
Is not moisture drawn from the ocean by the 
sun, carried in clouds, and deposited even 
on mountain-peaks ? 

Read the following, and see if Sarah Wol- 
sey has not put much truth into her poem, 
in saying : 



Essays and Poems 29 



" Sitting some day in a deeper mist, 
Silent, alone, some other day. 
An unknown bark, from an unknown 
bay. 
By unknown waters lapped and kissed 
Shall near me through the spray. 

" No flap of sail, no scraping of keel, 
Shadowy, dim, with a banner dark 
It will hover, will pause, and I shall feel 
A hand that leads me, and quietly steal 
To the cold strand, and embark. 

" Embark for that far, mysterious realm 
Where the fathomless, trackless waters 

flow. 
I shall feel a Presence dim, and know 
Thy hand, dear Lord, upon the helm, 
Nor be afraid to go ! *' 

A Writer s Life, 

Whatever he may find, 'tis less than he has 

sought ; 
Whatever he may give, 'tis all too poorly 

wrought ; 



30 The Religion of Manhood 



Whatever he may speak, *tis less than he 

has thought ; 
Whatever he may teach, 'tis less than he 

was taught. 

Content, 

To-night, thank God ! I am content 
No matter when the call is sent, 
No matter when my soul is blent 
With other souls, above. 

Contented here, and perfect there ; 
Never was promise half so fair 
As that which tells us, *' God does care ; 
His words are words of love.'' 

Although the day may still seem long. 
And though your life is full of wrong ; 
Through evil and through good, be strong, 
Be patient and be brave. 

God's messengers may be named, "' Pain," 
" Sorrow," " Trial," — yet not in vain 
These messengers all sing one strain, 
'* Remember, He will save." 



Essays and Poems 31 



Literal Christianity, 

Christianity, as we ordinarily understand 
the word, is, I believe, a beautiful, noble 
and touching effort to personify that which 
has not personality. It is an effort conceived 
and carried out, expressed and carried on, 
in the main, by noble men who believe it to 
be the best way of expressing truth to others, 
men who, themselves, believe to a great 
extent in that which they teach, yet few of 
them dare assert that they are " led by 
Christ*'; because they lack that personal 
leading which alone can warrant such an 
assertion. 

We of to-day, many of us, no longer be- 
lieve in " Christianity '* in any such literal 
sense as we used to do. 

What is the Soul ? 

It is the vital, eternal and transcendent 
part of us, that part which (as Wordsworth 
says) : 

— *' rises with us, our life's star, — 
Not in entire forgetfulness, 



32 The Religion of Manhood 



And not in utter nakedness, 

But trailing clouds of glory do we come 

From God, who is our home :'' 

Does this **we," as used by him, here, 
refer to the earthly, physical or selfish self 
which is so apparent, most of the time, in 
this world ? Not at all, but rather to that 
higher self which is often so hidden as to be 
scarcely discernible for a time, yet which 
always leads us away from and beyond the 
lesser things of this life which continually 
tempt us, which assure us of its truth, its 
reality, and its eternity of life, which rebukes 
us whenever we turn to lower satisfactions, 
and which proves itself stronger than any 
temptation to doubt, to fear, or to lasting 
discouragement. 

Eartlis Message, 

** Wearied and worn by the struggle here, 
Bruised and torn by the ceaseless strife, 

What is the message of earth, my dear ? 
What is the meaning of death, of life ? ** 



Essays and Poems 33 



" Death^s meaning, often, is but more life, 

Glories that soften, year after year ; 
Peace, joy, and happiness, freedom from 

strife, 
That is the message of earth, my dear ! '* 

Afterward. 

Shall I, as some tell me : ** Go in for wealth ; 
Bury your feelings ; consider your health : 

Forget her? " ** Forget her ? '' I answer, 
''Oh, no! 

Life. may in many ways seem but a show, 
Full of appearances, — yet in my heart 
Still lives a vision which nothing can part, 

Nothing can sever and naught take away. 

There it remains to the close of life's 
day/' 

And when, beyond this world, *' life's work 

well done," 
I shall have passed from the sight of earth's 

sun. 

Will I then think of her ? Will I be near? 
3 



34 The Religion of Manhood 



If she should question me, would I then 
hear? 
Yes ! 'neath the law of God, if we still live 
In such a manner as answer to give 

To those who need us, to those who desire 
Only God's music, to fit to life's lyre. 

To Rev, John Hutchins, 

January i, 1896. 

(a new year's greeting to a new pastor.) 

Welcome to our Litchfield hills 
Him who with God's Presence thrills, — 
We, indeed, do welcome you, 
May you be both brave and true. 
Lead the people through the night. 
Lead the people to the Light, 

Speak the words of right and truth 
To the children and the youth, 
Preach throughout the coming year 
With a heart that knows no fear, 
Blest beyond all with God's love 
Given from His home above ! 



Essays and Poems 35 



Two Pictures. 



First — Coming down on the car this morn- 
ing, and referring to the rain which had been 
falHng in sheets since three o*clock, one man 
said : " I found a tramp standing under the 
eaves of my barn a few minutes ago, dripping 
wet, thin and sickly, using what little shelter 
he could find. He told me that he had been 
there all night. He had a bad cold, too. 
It *s a hard life, is n't it ? *' 

Second — Going into the Public Library 
this afternoon, to glance at the last issue of 
Harper s Weekly, I found as its frontispiece 
the design accepted for a Cathedral to be 
erected at Washington by the Episcopalians, 
to cost three million dollars. 

One picture is an isolated instance of an 
extreme of poverty. The other is a very 
striking case of rich and self-glorifying reli- 
gious pride and sectarian interest, 

Both are part of that '' world '* into which 
the Saviour sent his disciples, saying to them : 



36 The Religion of Manhood 



^' Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass 
in your purses, nor scrip for your journey,** 
saying to them, at another time: ''Inas- 
much as ye have done it unto one of the 
least of these, my brethren, ye have done it 
unto Me," and telling them also, that '' The 
Son of Man hath not where to lay his 
head." 

Yet one division of His modern disciples 
need a three million dollar cathedral in 
which to listen to the words of the head of 
their denomination in America, and " the 
least of these," although still called " breth- 
ren," must yet remain in rags, in dampness, 
and in a state of sickness. 

Why ? Because '' unworthy " ? Perhaps 
so. Very likely so, in this particular case ! 
But is it not true that many a man and many 
a woman, honest, hard-working, and God- 
fearing, is having too hard a struggle amid 
the *' hard-times " near the close of this nine- 
teenth century, to justify any church in 
putting three million dollars into a grand 



Essays and Poems 37 



cathedral, rather than into '* daily bread " 
('* bread of life/' most truly !) for the suffer- 
ing ones ? 

We are Christian in our theory, Christian 
in our philosophy ; but when it comes to our 
actual practice, are not most of us, in our 
churches and in our services, self-glorifying 
in effect, rather than broadly charitable ? 

Santa Barbara, Cal., January 27, i8g6. 

How to Live. 

Live as thou wouldst live when thy soul is 
clear ! 

Live as the birds live when clouds disap- 
pear ! 

Live as the saints live when their Home is 
near ! 

Then wilt thou die in peace. 

A Conqueror. 

He kept up the standards 

Through thick and through thin ; 

He loved not the evil. 
He loved not the sin. 



38 The Religion of Manhood 



What is Sin ? 

Sin IS the being untrue to that within our 
control which is best. Sin is a choosing of 
the lesser and lower, rather than the greater, 
the nobler, the higher. Sin is a loving of 
evil, rather than good. Sin is not so much 
a matter of our apparent actions (although 
they, of course, are the visible fruit of our 
thoughts, and must be that by which others 
judge us). Rather, ^' to him that thinketh 
anything to be sin, to him it is sin." '* As a 
man thinketh, so is he.'' 

" Every man according to the light he 
has,'* yet in matters of law we must not 
judge too delicately on the question of a 
man's ^* light." The good of the community 
should be considered, the need of making an 
example ! 

What is better than the sacrifice of the 
individual for the public good ? 

A Prayer, 

God keep me from insanity ! 
God keep me from profanity 



Essays and Poems 39 



And cruel inhumanity ! 
Amen. 

A Statement. 

At the risk of being misunderstood, I 
make the follov/ing statement : 

I believe that to continue to help this 
struggling world, after death, to use our 
superior powers, at that time, for the benefit 
of those yet on earth, would be a better life 
than to use a harp among the redeemed, in 
singing praises ! 

An Answer to ^''Isolation of Individuality '' 

In the Los Angeles Times, last January, 
G. W. Robertson published an essay, ^* The 
Isolation of Individuality/' The extreme 
loneliness of soul described by him may be 
true in some particulars, and undoubtedly 
is, but it seemed as though the thought was 
left in incomplete and depressing shape, for 
the essay did not give the results gathered 
by most of the really lonely characters of 
history, and the effect of their loneliness 



40 The Religion of Manhood 



I 



upon their work, and upon those who learn 
of it afterward. 

Let me illustrate the truth which I wish 
to make clear. Would Dante ever have 
written as he did, if he had not been lonely? 
Would Longfellow have written either Tlie 
Bridge or The Light of Stars if he had 
not been very lonely ? And is it true that 
these two great souls, through their writing, 
touch other souls only at one or two points ? 

Mr. Robertson says : ** No soul touches 
another soul except at one or two points, 
and those chiefly external." On the other 
hand, listen for a moment to Emerson, when 
he says : " A soul living from a great depth 
of being awakens in us, by its actions and 
words, by its very looks and manners, the 
same power and beauty that a gallery of 
sculpture or of pictures is wont to animate." 
Are there no altruistic compensations in 
such soul-loneliness as that referred to in 
'' Isolation of Individuality " ? Surely there 
are, and we regret that they were not pic- 
tured by Mr. Robertson himself, in direct 



Essays and Poems 41 



connection with the loneliness he describes, 
—loneliness which is, at times, almost un- 
bearable, were it not for the thought 
which continually comes to us, the thought 
that real loneliness is by no means in vain. 

Evil is but Perverted Good. 

I have one theory which came to me with 
striking force, years ago. I entered it at 
that time in my note-book, and have be- 
come more and more convinced of its truth 
since then. It is simply that evil is but per- 
verted good. 

What else can we believe, if we believe at 
all as Mr. Whittier did, as expressed in his 
words, 

** All is of God that is, and is to be ; 
And God is good '* ? 

Who, then, is to blame for the fact that 
the good ('* the God in you '*) is so often 
perverted ? Not angels and not devils, cer- 
tainly, but men ! There is the answer to 



42 The Religion of Manhood 



many such questions, and the solution of 
many problems. In men ! 

Yet, alas ! how often do we look for out- 
side reasons, instead of placing the blame 
where it belongs — /. ^., upon and through our 
own selves and otir ^' adjustment." 



PART II. 
QUOTATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS. 



43 



QUOTATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS. 



The True Man, 

Take thou no thought for aught save right 
and truth. 

Life holds for finer souls no equal judge ; 

Honors and wealth are baubles to the wise, 

And pleasure flies on swifter wing than 
youth 

If in thy heart thou bearest seeds of hell. 

Though all men smile, get what shall be thy 
gain ; 

Though all men frown, of truth and right re- 
main ; 

Take thou no thought for self, for all is well 

Lewis Morris. 

^* The sum of wisdom is, that the time is 
never lost that is devoted to work." 

Emerson. 
45 



46 The Religion of Manhood 



*' Rightly to be is the sole inlet of rightly 
to know/* Ibid, 

*^ The only true knowledge is that con- 
scious knowledge which speaks out of the 
soul/* 

Dr. a. C. Hirst. 

** The Parnassan heights that lie up yonder, 
bathed with sun-glow, are reached by the 
man and not by the mob.'* 

L. E. MOSHER. 

Matthew Arnold has said that, '' What 
distinguishes the greatest poets is their 
powerful and profound application of ideas 
to Hfe.** 

An Ideal Popular Leader, 

He is one who counts no public toil so hard 
As idly glittering pleasures ; one con- 
trolled 

By no mob*s haste, nor swayed by gods of 
gold ; 



Quotations and Suggestions 47 



Prizing, not courting, all just men's regard ; 
With none but manhood's ancient order 
starred, 
Nor crowned with titles less august and 
old 
Than human greatness ; large brained, limpid 
souled ; 
Whom dreams can hurry not, nor doubts 
retard ; 
Born, nurtured of the people ; living still 
The people's life ; and though their noblest 
flower, 
In naught removed from them save alone 

In loftier virtue, wisdom, courage, power ; 
The ampler vision, the serener will, 

And the fixed mind, to no light dallyings 
prone. 

William Watson. 

The Greatest of AIL 

He only is great of heart who floods the 
world with a great aff"ection. He only is 
great of mind who stirs the world with great 



48 The Religion of Manhood 



thoughts. He only is great of will who does 
something to shape the world to a great 
career, and he is greatest who does the most 
of all these things and does them best. 

R. D. Hitchcock. 

**We cannot act without a theory of life; 
and to whom shall we look for such a theory, 
except to those who, undaunted by the diffi- 
culties of the task, ask once more, and strive 
to answer, those questions which man cannot 
entirely escape, as long as he continues to 
think and act ? " 

*^ Browning as a Philosopher and 

Religious Teacher/' 

*' But you have reached many people with 
your poems, and helped many/' I suggested ; 
'' there was always a heart-touch in them/' 
" There was a heart-need in them, I doubt 
not," he said, with tears in his eyes, '^ for my 
life has been very incomplete, sometimes 
very lonely/' 

Whittier. 



Quotations and Suggestions 49 



" Though his life was filled with bitter and 
crushing disappointments, we may search 
his writings in vain for any word which can 
be made to indicate a doubt as to the princi- 
ples which guided his actions or as to the 
result of his work." 

Written of Paul, in Mr. Symington's 

Sermon, of January 18, 1885. 

After all, I may write, and underline, and 
punctuate with great care, without giving to 
anyone quite the meaning that some special 
words and sentences have to me. Yet it 
seems as though others would gather some- 
thing of that which I so much enjoy ! 

To My Pen. 

Nay, not so fast ! A mettled steed thou art. 

And swift to dash across the wide white 
plain ! 
But ere we on our morning's journey start 

Let us resolve some certain point to gain. 

It boots not if we dip in old romance, 

Or weave a rhyme to kill a babe asleep, 
4 



50 The Religion of Manhood 



Or sing the trifling pleasures of the dance, 
Or tell of happiness serene and deep. 

But we must reach at eve the goal Content, 
By level or by labyrinthine way, 

And feel the bygone hours were not ill spent 
Nor wasted, so we may now humbly say : 

** A word there was with loving kindness 
fraught, 

A hint that might a drooping faith renew, 
A plea for softer speech, for purer thought, 

A message hopeful or a warning true/* 

And were no man helped onward for a mile. 

No fainting brother lifted from the dust. 
No wan face won a moment to a smile — 
'' 'T were better, pen, we should forever 
rust ! " 

Julia Ditto Young. 

*^ Question not, but live and labor 
Till the goal be won, 
Helping every feeble neighbor 



Quotations and Suggestions 5 1 



Seeking help from none ; 
Life is mostly froth and bubble, 

Two things stand like stone — 
Kindness in another's trouble, 

Courage in your own ! '' 

Adam Lindsay Gordon. 

*' — higher than this can no man attain ^ to 
live to the level of his highest thought/ " 

Unknown. 

'' Is there a dream or a hope in you, that 

makes your life look richer and nobler? Lay 

your hand in that, just as you would into 

the open hand of God." 

Thoreau. 

" To trust is the greatest step God-wards 

that any soul can take.*' 

T. T. Hunger. 

*' Phillips, when he devoted his life to the 
Anti-Slavery cause, made a great sacrifice. 
He deliberately gave up all hope of wealth, 
social position, and political honor which his 



52 The Religion of Manhood 



birth and his splendid intellectual gifts justi- 
fied him in looking forward to." 

Carlos Martyn. 

** This or that ; not this and that." 

Philip G. Hamerton. 

'' He kept his honesty and truth. 

His independent tongue and pen, 
And moved in manhood as in youth, 
Pride of his fellow-men." 

" Burns," Fitz-Greene Halleck. 

*' He was Ishmael enough to know the 

value of liberty." 

Kipling. 

Fill needs first, then wants. 

*' Greatness consists not in the abundance 
of our wants, but in the smallness of our 

needs." 

Unknown. 

*' I have very few wants," she answered 

brightly ; ^^ and wealth is only a relative 

word after all." 

Beatrice Harraden. 



Quotations and Suggestions 53 



" All things lovely and righteous are possi- 
ble for those who believe in their possibility, 
and who determine that for their part they 
will make every day's work contribute to 
them." 

John Ruskin. 

Notice, this does not say all things ma- 
terial, financial, or commercial, but '* all 
things lovely and righteous " ! The outside, 
the circumstances, the material, — these are 
but partly within our control, so although we 
may not and should not neglect them, we 
may and should look beyond them, and ever 
through them apprehend the blessings, the 
privileges and the duties which belong to 
those higher regions and elements which we 
call soul ^nd mind and spirit, in contrast to 
the lesser powers of heart and brain and 
body. 

" The happiness of your life depends upon 
the character of your thoughts/* 

Marcus Aurelius. 



54 The Religion of Manhood 



If we keep our minds occupied only with 
good thoughts, we will not be wearied by 
the sameness of our daily round. 

*^ Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes, they 

were men who stood alone 
While the men they agonized for hurled 

the contumelious stone ; 
Stood serene, and down the future saw 

the golden beam incline 
To the side of perfect justice, mastered by 

their faith sublime. 
By one man's plain truth to manhood and 

to God's supreme design." 

Lowell. 

After all, not more refining of fine-spun 
theories, but more refining of ourselves, and 
through ourselves '' the world," to some ex- 
tent, is what is most needed. 

'' Patience and abnegation of self, and devo- 
tion to others, 
These were the lessons a life of trial and 
sorrow had taught her." 

Evangeline^ 



Quotations and Suggestions 55 



De : concerning ; votunt : giving — so de- 
votion to others means a giving of that 
which concerns others, not perhaps a giving 
up, for that depends upon how others are 
best to be benefited. 

" Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act, 
And make the generous thought a fact, 
Keeping with many a hght disguise 
The secret of self-sacrifice/* 

Unknown. 

The secret and the true test of self-sacri- 
fice is its unselfishness. Not its appearance, 
not necessarily its denial of self, but its mo- 
tive. The appearance and the amount of 
self-denial are incidents, not causes. 

** There is no sacrifice to those who love, 
in what is borne for the one we love." 

Last Days of Pompeii, 

'* Why not take life with cheerful trust. 
With faith in the power of weakness ? 
The slenderest daisy lifts its head 



56 The Religion of Manhood 



With courage, and in meekness. 
A sunny face 
Hath holy grace/' 

Unknown. 

Fly high ! Fly high ! It is better to aim 
at a star, and enjoy the light of constella- 
tions alone, than to creep along an ordinary 
plane in ordinary company. The poet must 
lead, and point above ! 

" Aim at the highest, and never mind the 
money.'' 

Though aiming at the highest, put it in a 
sufificiently light way, so that it will attract. 

** Blessed is the man who has found his 
work. Let him ask no other blessedness." 

Carlyle. 

Keep Up the Standard ! 

" Know Thyself.'' 

" But what I truly believe I was meant to 
do, that will I do, no matter what it costs." 
Mary Hallock Foote. 



Quotations and Suggestions 57 



Clear Sight. 
I think 'tis time, yes ! fully time to see ! 
To ask myself (this other self, whatever it be) 
What, of these influences, belongs to me ? 

J. O. C. 

— " The intense Dante is intense in all 

things." 

Thomas Carlyle. 

** By labor and intent study, which I take 
to be my portion in life, I may haply leave 
something so written to after times that they 
will not willingly let it die/' 

John Milton. 

** The talent of success is nothing more 
than doing what you can do, well, without a 
thought of fame/' 

Longfellow. 

** To me it seems incomparably better 
that any one's accidental moods should be 
haunted by a subtle or noble thought, or by 
a line that has soul or music in it, than for 
one to be a master of learning." 

E. T. McLaughlin. 



58 The Religion of Manhood 



" All one*s life is music, if one but uses 
the stops rightly, and in time/' 

Mendelssohn. 

^* Not by his money, or his power, 
Not by his intellect, indeed ; 
Not by the pleasure of an hour, 
Nor by the wording of his creed. 
But by the strong will. 
But by the souFs grace, 
But by the yearnings which thread 
Night and day. 
Soft and still, 
Till they glow in his face. 
Do we tell man's life 
Forever and aye." 

Unknown. 

^' What a man is engraves itself on his 
face, on his form, on his fortunes, in letters 
of light which all may read but himself.'' 

Emerson. 

Like that which a man thinks most of, 
does he become. The thoughts of a man's 



Quotations and Suggestions 59 



heart and soul are those which really affect 
us. Yes, and affect him, just as surely as 
the currents of electricity affect the carbons 
in electric lights! They make him glow 
with health, with love, with pure light, or 
they consume him with the flames of fever, 
hate and passion. 

Not that the thoughts are everything! 
There are, indeed, natural causes for health, 
for affection, for anger, for hate, but how 
important it is to think as we should, during 
these times of special trial or excitement, 
during the temptation to wild, wicked, or in- 
judicious actions, for it is just this that 
makes the difference between heroes and 
criminals. 

Carlyle says : '' The thoughts they had 
were the parents of the actions they did.'* 
And he goes further, saying : '^ Their feel- 
ings were parents of their thoughts ; it was 
the unseen and spiritual in them which 
determined the outward and actual." 



6o The Religion of Manhood 



^' We live in deeds, not years ; in thoughts, 

not breaths ; 
In feeHngs, not in figures on a dial. 
We should count time by heart-throbs. He 

most lives 
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts 

the best. 

Life *s but a means unto an end, that end — 

Beginning, mean and end to all things — 

God.'' 

Philip James Bailey. 

** Poets are all who love, who feel great 

truths 

And tell them ; and the truth of truths is 

love." 

Bailey. 

New-England, 

Wherever thought is deep and strong. 

Wherever conscience fights with wrong, 

Wherever manhood dares to die. 

And womanhood is pure and high ; 

On mountain peak or plain or sea 

The soul's one cry must ever be : 

Thank God for old New-England. 



Quotations and Suggestions 6i 



The warrior's sword and poet's pen 
Are thine to waeld, but only when 
The cause of right demands the blow, 
When thou wouldst lay proud error low ; 
Then only does thy face of love 
Grow dark with sternness from above, 
Oh, grandly great New-England ! 



For those enslaved in life, in thought, 
Thy blood, thy tongue, hath freedom 

bought. 
The arm of justice in its might. 
The thrilling voice of truth and right, 
The patriot ardor, glowing warm 
With courage calm in battle storm, 
Are in thy name, New-England. 

Lewis W. Smith. 



" You will find life full of sweet savour, if 
you do not expect from it what it cannot 
give." 

Renan. 



62 The Religion of Manhood 



" It is the little rift within the lute, 
That bye-and-bye will make the music 

mute, 
And ever-widening slowly silence all/* 

Tennyson. 

" He who is false to present duty, breaks 
a thread in the loom, and will find the flaw 
when he may have forgotten the cause/' 

H. W. Beecher. 

** New occasions teach new duties. 
Time makes ancient good uncouth, — '* 

Not untrue, not valueless, but '' uncouth,*' 
inapplicable, perhaps, to present needs, in 
the letter, although the noble spirit of the 
*' ancient good '* is and will continue to be a 
strong inspiration to many of us ! 

*' The only conclusive evidence of a man's 
sincerity is that he gives himself for a princi- 
ple. Words, money, all things else, are com- 
paratively easy to give away, but when a 
man makes a gift of his daily life and prac- 



Quotations and Suggestions 63 



tice it is plain that the truth, whatever it 
may be, has taken possession of him/* 

Lowell. 

" Man will ever wrestle ; he will never 

trust/' 

Goethe. 

This is the same idea, as to "trust'* as 
Longfellow uses, in saying : " Trust no 
future, however pleasant,'* is it not ? Yet 
Longfellow goes further, and more nearly 
completes the thought by adding, 

" Let the dead past bury its dead. 
Act, act in the living present, 
Heart within and God o'erhead/' 

" In the reverent pause with which the 
heart answers these questions, the instinct 
and the habit of trust in our Creator are 
gently justified/' 

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. 

" I 'd just gently like bring her round some 

time; keep on prayin' an' all that, but don't 

force it/' 

Margaret Deland. 



64 The Religion of Manhood 



'' Like a high soul, which feels itself so great 
It can with an untroubled courage wait 
Hour and event, which surely come at 

last, 
Since, in God's certain order, none is 
overpast/' 

Unknown. 

" Strong sense, deep feeling, passions strong, 
A hate of tyrant and of knave, 
A love of right, a scorn of wrong. 
Of coward and of slave, — 

*' A kind, true heart, a spirit high. 

That could not fear and would not bow, 
Were written in his manly eye 
And on his manly brow/' 

Fitz-Greene Halleck. 



— " He was passionately absorbed in form- 
ing ideas on the great questions of life and 
its relations." 

Life of Napoleon^ by Ida M. Tarbell. 



Quotations and Suggestions 65 



*' The nation is now the paramount ob- 
ject," he wrote ; ** my natural inclinations 
are now in harmony with my duties/' 

Ibid, 

" He had won his place as any poor and 
ambitious boy in any country and in any 
age must win his — by hard work, by grasp- 
ing at every opportunity, by constant self- 
denial, by courage in every failure, by 
springing to his feet after every fall/' 

Ibid. 

'* Of all paths a man could strike into, 
there is, at any given moment a best path 
for every man ; a thing which, here and now, 
it were of all things wisest for him to do, 
which, would he but be led or driven to do, 
he were then doing ' like a man,' as we 
phrase it. This path, to find this path and 
walk in it, is the one thing needful for him/' 

Carlyle. 

*^ No one lives his own life who does not 
dwell in his higher rather than in his lower 



66 The Religion of Manhood 



faculties. To grow toward the ideal, to 
realize the heavenly image that we shall 
bear even as we have borne the image of 
the earthly — this is living one's own life/* 

Unknown. 

" It is said by a recent writer — that Jesus 
Christ taught no new doctrine. Perhaps not, 
but he made real and vital an old doctrine.'' 

Dr. Lyman Abbott. 

'^ Make God real, make art holy, make 

righteousness beautiful, and the family tie 

universal." 

G. W. Cable. 

** The purer life draws nigher. 
Every year ; 
And its morning star climbs higher, 

Every year ; 
Earth's hold on us grows slighter. 
The heavy burdens lighter. 
And the dawn immortal brighter. 
Every year ! " 

Albert Pike. 



Quotations and Suggestions 67 



" Build thee more stately mansions, O my 
soul, 
As the swift seasons roll ! 
Leave thy low-vaulted past ! 
Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more 
vast. 
Till thou at length art free. 
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's un- 
resting sea ! '' 

Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

** The material part of us ought to keep 
growing thinner to let the soul out when its 
time comes, and the soul ought to keep 
growing bigger and stronger every day, until 
it bursts the body at length, as a growing 
nut does its shell/' 

George Macdonald. 

'* Mr. Gladstone is a believer in the theory 
that a man can do better mental work every 
year to extreme old age if he takes care of 
his body. He claims that the mind grows 
stronger and clearer as the body loses vi- 



68 The Religion of Manhood 



tality, and that it is only disease of the latter 
that can prevent an intellectual progress that 
will go on to the end. He is certainly a 
good illustration of his working theory/' 

Unknown. 

— " The head and face were those of a 
man who might move the world more readily 
than the world could move him — a man to 
be twice twelve times tortured into the 
shapeless cripple he was, without a groan, 
much less a confession ; a man to yield his 
Hfe but never a purpose or a point ; a man 
born in armor, and assailable only through 

his loves/' 

Re " Simonides," Ben-Hur^ p. 183. 

How these illustrate the truth that every 
higher man must (if he would continue *' up- 
ward '') continually keep the body under, 
and bring all appetites into subjection, rather 
than allow any to become master ! 

" Here then w^e have the first important 
condition of any real, true success in life, the 
conviction that the circumstances of a man's 



1 



Quotations and Suggestions 69 



life are never more clearly a part of God's 
plan for that man than when they seem to 
leave him no alternative. There is no belief 
so inspiriting and comforting as that all 
these things, the patient struggle with ad- 
versity, the daily toil, no matter what, are, 
under God, preparing and perfecting us/' 
Rev. Charles Symington, 

" The tissue of the life to be 

We weave with colors all our own. 
And in the field of destiny 
We reap as we have sown/* 

Whittier. 

May not ** the life to be " just as well and 
truly refer to life from henceforth, in this 
world, as well as to the life beyond ? Is it 
not always true that ^^ Life is as we take it," 
rather than as it appears to be, on the sur- 
face, and does not the world become what 
each of us helps to make it, for better or 
worse? And according to the lights of our 
lives, be they greater or smaller, let them be 



Jo The Religion of Manhood 



directed toward and for the right, the true, 
and the good, in and through both local and 
general circumstance, rather than ever down- 
ward or backward ! 

'' Walk in the light ; 

So shalt thou know 
Thy path, though thorny, bright ! 

For God by faith shall dwell in thee ; 
And God himself is Light/' 

• If I were only a little freer and stronger, 
physically, just at present, I would begin an 
essay or composition of some sort to be called 
*^ Finding the God in our Circumstances," 
an elaboration of the tenet in O^te Mans 
Thesis, which says, "' God is an essence/' 
How much of my writing needs a httle more 
elaboration ! If I but had more money, 
more freedom from pain and less *^ head- 
trouble,'' how clearly could I define some of 
the truths which, in spite of these disadvan- 
tages, I have already partly expressed ! God 
only knows the whys and w^herefores of the 
often fruitless thoughts and ''inspirations" 



Quotations and Suggestions 71 



which have so continually come to me with 
such power that to attempt to evade them 
was almost useless, no matter how much 
some temporary reason might appeal to me 
as adverse to them. 

At times there has been some fruit, surely, 
and I Ve no desire to belittle that, but the 
fact is often apparent that I have suffered 
more than most men, and have reaped little 
as an offset to that suffering, in the way of 
any sufficient compensation, per se^ to any 
persons (except certain friends, to whom it 
does seem as though the same amount of 
benefit might as well have been given at less 
cost, if I had only been allowed to work out 
the lesser plans toward which I have contin- 
ually held.) 

** Yet nerve thy spirit to the proof. 
And blench not from thy chosen lot/* 

Bryant. 

Mr. Symington truly said : ''As he looks, 
wearied perhaps with toil, the temptation 
comes to shirk. He sees only the contrast. 



72 The Religion of Manhood 



then — there comes to him the remembrance 
that his lot is chosen and his work divinely 
appointed. This thought becomes an ele- 
ment of strength." 

^*The New Brotherhood still exists and 
grows. There are many who imagined that 
as it had been raised out of the earth by 
Elsmere*s genius, so it would sink with him. 
Not so ! He would have fought the struggle 
to victory with surpassing force, with a bril- 
liancy and rapidity none after him could 
rival. But the struggle was not his. His 
effort was but a fraction of the effort of the 
race. In that effort, and in the Divine force 
behind it, is our trust, as was his.'* 

Mrs. Humphrey Ward. 

" Have we not all one Father? Has not 
He created us all? Why should we be 
bigoted and not love our neighbors as our- 
selves? Death makes us all equals. There 
are about one thousand different religions on 
this earth and but one in the hereafter." 

Rabbi Ben Akiba. 



Quotations and Suggestions 73 



** Work for the union of all who love, in 
the service of those who suffer ! '' 

W. T. Stead. 

*' Blessed is the memory of those who have 
kept themselves unspotted from the world ! 
Yet more blessed the memory of those who 
kept themselves unspotted in the world.'* 

Mrs. Jameson. 

'* So to the cahnly gathered thought 
The innermost of life is taught, 
The mystery, dimly understood, 
That love of God is love of good ; 
That to be saved is only this, — 
Salvation from our selfishness." 

J. G. Whittier. 

" I praise him not ; it were too late ; 
And some innative weakness there must be 
In him who condescends to victory 
Such as the Present gives, and cannot wait, 
Safe in himself as in a fate. 

So always firmly he ; 
He knew to bide his time. 



74 The Religion of Manhood 



And can his fame abide, 
Still patient in his simple faith sublime, 
Till the wise years decide." 

J. R. Lowell. 

The Shadow Chaser. 

With outstretched hands he saw his child- 
joys flee, 
And vanish with the passing of the day, 
Like ships that hold their course far out at 
sea 
Nor heed the anxious watchers in the bay. 
And glad youth found him following, ardent- 
eyed. 
The fleeting phantoms that he ever lost ; 
And all his eager manhood seemed denied 
The sweet reward such weary searching 
cost. 
Then came, at length, life's lord, sweet Death, 
and to him said : 
" Oh ! loyal heart, well done, behold thy 
wage ! '* 
And lo ! with fadeless beauty overspread. 



Quotations and Suggestions 75 



The shadow of his childhood, youth and 
age." 

Helen Gray Cone. 



Might she not more suitably have used a 
word calling Death a messenger, rather than 
*' lord '* ? Yet in all the other words, how 
true this poem is ! 

The Agnostic s Question — *' Is Life Worth 
Living? " 

Life is a thing worth living to the brave, 
Who fear not fortune's spite ; in truth who 
trust. 
Whose spirit, not thralled by pride or earth- 
ward lust. 
Stands up, while mortal tumults round 
them rave. 
Like Teneriffe above the ocean wave ; 

Who mailed in duty, with divine disgust 
Recoil from frivolous joys and aims unjust. 
Nor miss rewards which Reason scorns to 
crave. 



76 The Religion of Manhood 



Life is worth living to those souls of light 
Who live for others, and by gift bestow- 
On them the jubilant beams their own by 
right, 
Who knowing life's defects, more inly 
know 
This life is not the Temple, but the Gate 
Where men, secure of entrance, watch and 
wait. 

Aubrey de Vere. 



^' Moreover, seeing as God giveth me to 

now, the ends I dream of are to be wrought 

by fair means alone/' 

Ben-Hur, 

Mirage, 

Treasure the shadow. Somewhere, firmly 
based, 
Arise those turrets that in cloud-land 
shine ; 
Somewhere to thirsty toilers of the waste 
Yon phantom well-spring is a living sign. 



Quotations and Suggestions "]"] 



Treasure the shadow. Somewhere past thy 

sight, 

Past all men's sight, w^aits the true heaven 

at last ; 

Tell them whose fear would' put thy hope 

to flight. 

There are no shadows save from substance 

cast. 

Edith M. Thomas. 



What Doth It Matter? 

It matters not the manner of our going 
Sooner or later comes the Master's call ; 

In summer's sunshine or in winter's blowing 
The message comes to all. 

Perchance our last farewell we may be taking 
In calm communion with a loving heart, 

Or in fierce winds or sudden waves high 
breaking 
Our spirits may depart. 

It matters not, if only we arc ready, 
Doing His will, accepted by His grace, 



78 The Religion of Manhood 



Bearing the banner of His great love steady, 
And standing in our place. 

It matters not the way of life*s conclusion. 
None knoweth how God's message then 
shall come, 
In calmest hush or wildest storm's confusion. 
He will but bear us home. 

L. C. Wood. 

The Prospect. 

Methinks we do as fretful children do. 
Leaning their faces on a window pane 
To sigh the glass dim with their own 
breath's stain, 
And shut the sky and landscape from their 

view ; 
And thus, alas ! since God the Maker drew 
A mystic separation 'twixt those twain. 
The life beyond us and our souls in pain, 
We miss the prospect which we are called 
unto 
By grief we are fools to use. Be still and 
strong, 



Quotations and Suggestions 79 



O man, my brother ! hold thy sobbing breath, 
And keep thy souFs large window pure 
from wrong, 
That so, as life's appointment issueth, 

Thy vision may be clear to watch along 

The sunset consummation lights of death. 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 

'* Life's work well done, 
Life's race well run, 
Life's crown well won. 
Then comes rest." 

Not on the road, not in the race, itself, but 
afterward ! We may enjoy partial and tem- 
porary rests, halts and refreshings, here, but, 
" the rest which remaineth " comes later than 
the present. 

A Morning Thought. 

What if some morning when the stars were 
paling, 
And the dawn whitened, and the east was 
clear, 



8o The Religion of Manhood 



Strange peace and rest fell on me from the 
presence 
Of a benignant spirit standing near: 

And I should tell him, as he stood beside 
me, 
'' This is our earth — most friendly earth, 
and fair ; 
Daily its sea and shore through sun and 
shadow 
Faithful it turns, robed in its azure air. 

** There is blest living here, loving and serv- 
ing, 
And quest of truth and serene friendships 
dear; 
But stay not. Spirit ! Earth has one de- 
stroyer — 
His name is Death ; flee, lest he find thee 
here ! " 

And what if then, while the still morning 
brightened. 
And freshened in the elm the Summer's 
breath. 



Quotations and Suggestions 8i 



Should gravely smile on me the gentle angel, 
And take my hand and say, '' My name is 

Death." 

Edgar Rowland Sill. 



T/ie Days Work. 

Do thy day's work, my dear, 

Though fast and dark the clouds are drifting 
near, 

Though time has little left for hope and very 
much for fear. 

Do thy day's work, though now 

The hand must falter and the head must 

bow, 
And far above the falling foot shows the 

bold mountain brow. 

Yet there is left us, 

Who on the valley's verge stand waiting 

thus, 
A light that lies far in the west, — soft, faint, 

but luminous. 



82 The Religion of Manhood 



We can give kindly speech, 
And ready helping hands to all and each, 
And patience to the watchful ones, by smil- 
ing silence teach. 

We can give gentle thought, 
And charity, by life's long lesson taught, 
And wisdom, from old faults lived down, by 
toil and failure wrought. 

We can give love unmarred 
By selfish snatch of happiness, unjarred 
By the keen arms of power or joy that make 
youth cold and hard. 

And if gay hearts reject 

The gifts we hold — would fain fare un- 
checked 

On the bright road that scarce yields all that 
eager eyes expect. 

Why, do thy day's work still ; 
The calm, deep founts of love are slow to 
chill, 




Quotations and Suggestions 83 



And heaven may yet the harvest yield, the 
workworn hands to fill. 

Chicago Herald, 

** I read it on the brow of night, 

Before the dawn bursts on the sky, 
The darker hour, the deeper sigh, 
Are tokens of some softer light. 

** The lurking vice, the tainting shame, 
The ills of earth, with all its moans, 
May be hewn into stepping-stones 
To climb the golden hill of fame.'' 
Part of Stepping Stones^ 

a poem by W. A. Havener. 

" Upon your hearts it is written. Take it 
down to them." 

Olive Schreiner's Dreams, 

" There is a kingdom on the earth, though 
it is not of it — a kingdom of wider bounds 
than the earth. Its existence is a fact as 
our hearts are facts, and we journey through 
it from birth to death without seeing it ; 



84 The Religion of Manhood 



nor shall any man see it until he hath first 

known his own soul ; for the kingdom is not 

for him, but for his soul/' 

Ben-Hur. 

Those things which we never see, literally, 
this side of the '* transition," but which we 
always feel ! They are, 

— '' an enigma to all who do not or cannot 
understand that every man is two in one — a 
deathless Soul and a mortal Body. 

" On the earth, yet not of it — not for men, 

but for their souls — a dominion, nevertheless, 

of unimaginable glory." 

Ben-Hur, 

— *' He became subject unto the law of 
death." Yes ! But was He not, indeed, 
superior to death, and may not we become 
so, too, rather than think of and meet Death 
as "the king of terrors," or anything by 
which we, ourselves, are ever to be con- 
quered ? 



Quotations and Suggestions 85 



" If such a one, having so much to give, 
Gave all, laying it down for love of men, 
And thenceforth spent himself to search for 

truth.— 
Surely, at last, far off, sometime, somewhere, 
The veil would lift for his deep-searching eyes, 
The road would open for his painful feet. 
That should be won for which he lost the 

world. 

And Death might find him conqueror of 

death/' 

Light of Asia, 

** ' I see the vision of a poor, weak soul 
striving after good. It was not cut short ; 
and in the end, it learned, through tears and 
much pain, that holiness is an infinite com- 
passion for others ; that greatness is to take 
the common things of life and walk truly 
among them ; that happiness is a great love 
and much serving. It was not cut short ; 
and it loved what it had learned, — it loved — 
and ' 

'' Was that all she saw in the corner ? '' 
The Story of an African Far?n. 



86 The Religion of Manhood 



— ^* Saw within 
A worthier image for the sanctuary, 

And shaped it forth before the multitude, 
Divinely human, raising worship so 

To higher reverence more mixed with 
love." 

George Eliot. 

— " The whole of the story is not written 
here, but it is suggested. And the attribute 
of all true art, the highest and the lowest, is 
this : that it says more than it says, and 
takes you away from itself. There is noth- 
ing so universally intelligible as truth. What 
your work wants is not truth, but beauty of 
external form, the other half of art.'' 

Story of an African Farm, 

" Bounded by themselves and unregardful 
In what state God's other work may be. 
Into their own tasks their powers out- 
pouring, 
These attain the mighty life you see." 
Matthew Arnold. 



Quotations and Suggestions 87 



** They talk of genius, it is nothing but 
this : that a man knows what he can do best, 
and does it, and nothing else.*' 

" Taste everything a little, look at every- 
thing a little, but live for one thing/' 

Story of a7i African Farm. 

Let that *' one thing " be the establishment 
and application of real truth, in and through 
'' the world " ! 

The Secret of Success. 

Not fancy merely, or the rush 
Of feeling, guides the pen or brush. 
As tint by tint, and line by line. 
The verses grow, the colors shine ! 
We find with these the crowning art. 
Whose magic can alone impart 
To genius all its highest gains — 
The faculty of taking pains. 

They learn the secret of success. 

Who seek — content with nothing less — 

Perfection, with no aim beside. 



88 The Religion of Manhood 



And, missing this, dissatisfied ! 
And they alone, in lifers brief day, 
To fame and honor win their way 
Who first achieve, for such high gains. 
The strenuous art of taking pains. 

J. R. Eastwood, in The Quiver, 



** The great thing in Hfe is to be in earnest, 
say what you mean, not what you think you 
ought to say, and strive for the thing you 
want — not for the thing which the philoso- 
phy of the moment has made fashionable, 
or the emotion of a day has made a little 

tempting/' 

John Oliver Hobbes. 

" Trifles, lighter than straws, are levers in 
the building of character/' 

Unknown. 



'' By our errors we see deeper into life. 
They help us/* 



Quotations and Suggestions 89 



" * It was a small thing, but life is made up 
of small things, as a body is built up of cells. 
What has been done in small things, can be 
done in large. Shall be,' she said softly/' 
Story of an African Farm. 

" He was so severe a lover of justice, and 
so precise a lover of truth, that he was supe- 
rior to all possible temptations for the viola- 
tion of either." 

Florence Earle Coaxes 
on Matthew Arnold. 

" In him was that rare combination of 
qualities ascribed to Pericles — a genius the 
most fervid, with passions the best regu- 
lated." 

Ibid, 

" There is, I know not how, in the minds 
of men, a certain presage, as it were, of a 
future existence, and this takes the deepest 
root, and is most discoverable, in the greatest 
geniuses and the most exalted souls." 

Cicero. 



90 The Religion of Manhood 




** The lifting up of the hands brings no 
salvation ; redemption is from within ; it is 
wrought out by the soul itself, with suffering 
and through time/' 

Story of an African Farm. 

'' Our acts our angels are, or good or ill, 
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still/* 
Beaumont and Fletcher. 

** To believe your own thought, to believe 
that what is true for you in your private 
heart is true for all men : — that is genius. 
Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be 
the universal sense ; for always the inmost 
becomes the outmost/* 

Emerson's Essay, " Self-Reliance/* 

'' The difference between men is in their 
principle of association. Some men classify 
objects by color and size and other acci- 
dents of appearance ; others by intrinsic 
likeness, or by the relation of cause and 
effect. The progress of the intellect consists 
in the clearer vision of causes, which over- 



Quotations and Suggestions 91 



looks surface differences. To the poet, to 
the philosopher, to the saint, all things are 
friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all 
days holy, all men divine/' 

Emerson's Essay, " History/* 

" As you approximate to man's highest 

ideal of God, as your arm is strong and your 

knowledge is great, and the power to labor 

is with you, so shall you gain all that human 

heart desires. 

Story of an African I^arm, 

"' So nigh is grandeur to our dust, 
So near is God to man, 
When duty whispers low, * Thou must !' 
The youth replies, * I can.' " 

Emerson. 

" It is we who may not cross over ; 
Only with song and prayer, 
A little way into the glory 

We may reach as we leave her there. 

" And somewhere yet, in the hilltops 
Of the country that hath no pain, 



92 The Religion of Manhood 



She will stand in her beautiful doorway 
To give us her welcome again." 

Our Homemaker^ 
Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney. 

The sad part, to my mind, is not that we 
have, some of us, loved and lost, although 
that, indeed, is a bitter experience, but that 
we do not " reach," and look, toward and 
unto that "' little way into the glory " which 
is permitted to those who climb to the top, 
to those who refuse to be discouraged by 
temporary disadvantages and hindrances. 

Fate. 

These withered hands are weak, 

But they shall do my bidding, though 

so frail. 
These lips are thin and white, yet shall 
not fail 
The appointed words to speak. 

Thy sneer I can forgive. 

Because I know the strength of destiny, 



Quotations and Suggestions 9^ 



Until my task is done, I cannot die, 
And then I would not live. 

John A. Dorgan. 



What an error to think that because we 
must bear suffering we should be sad ! What 
an error to fail to face the future cheerfully 
and hopefully, even if it seem dark ! 

After all, there is little which can be said 
to advantage beyond Dr. Munger's words, 
when he says : *^ One thing you can do, and 
it is the best thing any man can do, you can 
keep up good heart." 

And he adds : ** This is courage, indeed, 
to look into a dull future and smile ; to stay 
bound and not chafe under the cords ; to 
endure pain and keep the cheer of health ; 
to see hopes die out and not sink into brutish 
despair. Here is courage before which we 
may well pause with reverence and admira- 
tion. It is so high that we link it with 
divine things, carrying it quite beyond the 
sphere of any earthly success." 



94 The Religion of Manhood 



Not to shrink and turn back, not to turn 
away one's head and forget, but to ** look ** 
and ** smile,'* smile because you have found 
that which is superior to dullness, that which 
can and will overcome ! 

Not to stay bound unwisely, or unneces- 
sarily, but while bound avoiding chafing, 
and only when allowed making a break for 
something better. 

*' For something better than she had 
known,'' to any extent, or for any length of 
time ! That is our desire, in the present and 
hereafter, '' for something better," better 
than the ordinary, better than the practical, 
better than the physical, something more 
nearly perfect, more harmonious, and more 
complete ! And to this desire has come and 
will come a sufficient answer. 

Grace/and *s Graves. 

A peaceful city lies over there ; 
Never a heartache, never a care : 
No more longing for better days 



Quotations and Suggestions 95 



Nor fruitless striving for higher ways, 
At peace with the world, at rest with God ; 
Home once more to the kindly sod 

Where roses bloom and the fresh grass 
waves 

A gladsome vigil o*er Graceland's graves. 

Some summer morning when skies are 

bright, — 
Some night in winter when snows are white ; 

It matters little the place nor when 

We shall have done with the cares of men : 
Follow we must where our fathers led 
Into the mystery of the dead, 

Seeking the peace the spirit craves ; 

Choosing a home *mid Graceland's graves. 

No one knows of the burdens borne 

Nor the cruel weight of yokes we Ve worn ! 
The broken idols are all our own : 
The lips have smiled when the heart would 
moan : 

Each one playing his dreary part ; 

Hiding the dead hopes in the heart; 



96 The Religion of Manhood 



We come to the stiUing of the waves 
And sunset leaves us at Graceland's graves. 

And when we are gone from the haunts of 
men, 

Will the world hold less of sunshine then ? 
Will mother, sister, sweetheart, wife. 
Love more of eternity, less of life ! 

Are we building a palace high and grand, 

Or a dingy hovel upon the sand ? 

So we ask the heart as the spirit craves 

The answer waiting at Graceland's graves. 

Nixon Waterman, 

in The Electric Spark. 
(Used by permission.) 

Would it not have been more true, if the 
word '*■ destined " had been used in the third 
verse, instead of *^ dreary '' ? 

Religion, 

We have before us the question of accept- 
ing and developing, or rejecting and con- 
tracting, what Lew Wallace speaks of as 
'' the beautiful, pure life of the soul/' And 



Quotations and Suggestions 97 



in another part of that same wonderful book 
{Ben-Hur), he uses the wording, ^' Religion, 
which has, in its purity, but three elements, 
— God, the Soul, and their mutual recogni- 
tion." 

And what have " theologians '' done for 
us, as to these " elements " ? Too often 
have they taught us that we are, in our 
younger days, but unregenerate creatures, 
and must experience a change of heart, or 
must be born again, or, at least, must believe 
in their *' theory," before we can be saved. 

'T is false, this '* theory " of theirs ! We 
are created pure, and the *^ falling from 
grace " comes in by degrees, in our natural 
lives, by our own acts and through our own 
development or lack of development. We 
find, it is true, natural tendencies to evil, yet 
our spirits themselves are pure, and only be- 
come sullied by the continual choice of or love 
of the grosser, and indulgence of appetite. 

The simple lines quoted below contain a 
great truth, for all who are willing to so 
live : 



98 The Religion of Manhood 



'' Keep innocence, be all a true man ought ; 

Let neither pleasure tempt nor pain appal ; 
Who hath this, he hath all things, having 
nought. 

Who hath it not hath nothing, having all/* 

Is it an easy thing to keep innocence ? 
Does one happen to be all a true man ought ? 
No, surely not ! To fulfil these ideals re- 
quires continual attention to the truth. 

*' But,** some one may ask, " is this re- 
ligion ? '* Indeed it is, and the truest kind, 
for what can bear a better witness to the 
truth than the life itself, and what was 
Christ's own mission but, as He expressed 
it, '' to bear witness to the truth *' ? 

Sacrifice. 

As to lesser things, let them go, because 
thoroughly believing that the comparatively 
unimportant must be left out of our pro- 
grammes of life ! And by the comparatively 
unimportant we mean that which is less 
worth winning, less worth accomplishing. 



Quotations and Suggestions 99 



As we go on in life we find that there are 
but a few things really worth winning. Few 
things that we accomplish are worth their 
price. But Oh, these ^^ few things " ! They 
are so rich in blessing, so true in effect, so 
much more than ** worth while," that money, 
vital energy, position, yes, even happiness 
and life itself seem but small things as com- 
pared to them. 

What, after all, is one human life ? How 
many of them do we hear about, and know 
about, every day, as being wasted or sacri- 
ficed for lesser pleasures, or for cheap ambi- 
tions, by the ones directly concerned or by 
those who think they will be benefited by 
the sacrifice of some one else ? 

What are these '* few things '' ? Part of 
them are suggested by William Watson^s 
words, '* loftier virtue, wisdom, courage, 
power," but more of them are included in 
the words, truth and God, 

THE END. 



ONE MAN'S THESIS 

BY JOHN O. eOlT 

Author of ** Inspirations " 
PRICE, SO CENTS 



PRESS NOTICES OF " ONE MAN^S THESIS/' 

Los Angeles, Cal., Times, — **This is a well- written 
little volume, full of pure devotional thought and helpful 
suggestiveness. The following is a sample of its teach- 
ings. " Our actions, our relations to others in this life, 
are, necessarily quite limited, but our spirits can be gen- 
erous — our sympathies may be almost boundless, if we 
will." 

Santa Barbara Press, — " A neat little volume published 
by Mr. John O. Coit, whose " Inspirations" were so well 
received a short time ago. The devotional tone that was 
one of the characteristics of his first book is equally strong 
in this later one, and a mingling of choice prose and poetry 
throughout the volume presents some very pleasurable and 
beneficial reading. The spirit of the book is uplifting, 
and the author may rest assured of finding a ready accep- 
tance for this and any other of his works that he may give 
to the public." 

Litchfield, Conn., Enquirer. — '* John O. Coit, now 
once again of Litchfield, lately of Santa Barbara, Cal., has 
been so much encouraged by the success of his first literary 
venture, " Inspirations," that he has just published another 
interesting little book called ' * One Man's Thesis." While 
the tone of the selections is as pure and inspiring as in the 
first book, we think that in its literary merit '* One Man's 
Thesis" is considerably ahead of *' Inspirations," and we 
heartily congratulate Mr. Coit." 

Boston, Mass., Post-Courier. — "A thoughtful exhorta- 
tion in prose and verse, under several heads, to reach 
the higher life. It is highly devotional, pure and ele- 
vated in thought and cannot fail to be helpful in times 
of spiritual depression. The attractive form in which the 
matter is arranged makes it very readable." 

Kansas City Times. — "A little volume deeply religious 
in tone and helpful to all who are trying to solve the prob- 
lems of life through faith and hope." 



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